TCP Viewer captures and displays all data that is transferred between client processes and a server process communicating through TCP/IP. The processes can be running on the same machine or different machines located anywhere on a network or the Internet. TCP Viewer can run on a machine different than the machine(s) that the processes are running on. An example of a client and server is a web browser and a web server.

TCP Viewer can be used by a developer to debug protocol problems or by anyone who is curious about what data is passed between processes.


TCP Viewer displays its output in a scrollable text box. This data may additionally be sent to a file. By default, only 32KB of data is kept in the scrollable text box. Higher data limits may be selected, including unlimited. However, TCP Viewer runs slower as the amount of data in the scrollable text box grows. It handles more than one connection.

Based upon the first transferred message, TCP Viewer will determine if the protocol is text based. If so, TCP Viewer will test each following message for text. If a message contains only text, TCP Viewer will display it as such. Else, TCP Viewer will show the message in hexadecimal and ASCII.